Friday, June 18, 2010

Jonathan Catalan has a brief post with an extensive comment section that works through the classic critique of democracy and "social contract" ideas more broadly. I concur with a lot of these critiques of the social contract, and I've said as much in the past. I've been meaning to flesh out my thoughts on this in more detail for a while, but I'll mention it briefly here as a sort of response to Jonathan.

1. Human beings are social beings and they are constantly interacting. These interactions are sometimes voluntary and consistent with human liberation, and sometimes involuntary and inconsistent with human liberation. Voluntary and involuntary interactions can both be either private or corporate. In Truth and Power, Foucault talked about an idea that I think is very similar - the "web of power". We are caught in a web of involuntary impositions on our liberty. It is the human condition.

2. There is often recourse for these impositions. Sometimes we have institutions like courts, or we have parents that arbitrate disputes between siblings. We can always revolt or strike back (self-defense is almost universally considered an appropriate justification for violence). But the ability to respond to an imposition doesn't make that imposition voluntary. Recourse to courts does not change the fact that pollution is an assault on personal liberty. Recourse to revolt does not change the fact that a tyranny is an assault on personal liberty. It is very good that we have recourse in many situations, but it doesn't make the involuntary act voluntary.

3. The state is involuntary. A social contract is distinct from other contracts precisely because the parties to the contract don't necessarily agree to their inclusion. However, the state can evolve or be designed (or a little of both... and after all, when it comes to human institutions what is "evolution" and "emergence" except for an accumulation of designs over time?) in a way that deliberately privileges citizen participation, control, and decision making. So yes it is involuntary, but that does not mean it is the equivalent of slavery. We need to be careful not to embrace sentimentalism that confuses the issue in either direction: the state is involuntary, but it is also an institution that is controlled by the people (at least the kind of states I'm concerning myself with here are).

4. The purpose of the liberal state is to minimally impose itself on human liberty but act as a bulwark against private tyrannies that emerge in the "web of power" that is natural to the human condition. The reason why non-libertarian classical liberals still embrace the state is precisely because they are concerned about private tyrannies that would threaten liberty in the absence of the state, and they conclude that in the optimal balance between private tyrannies and the public tyrannies implicit in the social contract, there is a role for the state. This brand of classical liberalism is not libertarian precisely because we consider libertarian restrictions on the state to threaten human liberty. Libertarians act like we don't care about human liberty, but the whole point of why we're not libertarians is because of what we perceive to be the libertarian threat to liberty. Libertarians downplay or ignore private tyrannies for some always unexplained reason. Tyranny is almost always public for them, and discussions always come back to government. Why? I still don't know. But because they see things that way they are always going to have a blind spot and they will always be an inadequate defense of human liberty. I don't really care about the etymology of their label - I'm not a libertarian because of how much I value liberty. There are definitely worse things to be than a libertarian if you value human liberty, of course. Libertarianism is definitely high on the list of second-bests. But it is not ideal.

5. This conception of the liberal state excludes non-liberal states as surely as it excludes libertarian states (and libertarians almost universally embrace the existence of some form of state). I don't have to answer for Nazi Germany or some other tyranny any more than any other non-anarchist, non-Nazi does. Slippery slopes are legitimate to talk about, but (1.) don't ignore the slippery slopes of libertarianism, which slide to anarchy on one side and crony capitalist oligarchy on the other, and (2.) don't think you'll get away with convincing me that the liberal state is on the road to serfdom. Libertarians love to bring up the slippery slope but they hate to apply it to themselves. Whenever crony capitalism emerges it's never the bottom of their own slippery slope. They won't even consider the possibility.

6. I'll also note that my thinking on this has been influenced by John Dewey's political writings as well. There's a piece where he talks about freedom in the same way that Foucault talks about the "web of power". I'll track it down, but he basically points out the path dependence of our ideas of freedom. Often (not always) when people complain about violation of their rights as a result of a state action, that state action has relieved a violation of other people's rights. When people complain about state imposition on BP and violations of liberty, what they forget is that this action helps to relieve impositions on the liberty of people suffering from the spill. Bastiat might call it the "seen and the unseen". Defenders of BP ignore the "unseen" violations of the liberty of the people the state is helping. In other words, we're dealing with a dense web of freedoms and rights, just like Foucault's dense web of power. Often it's a trade-off between competing liberties, and often we accept involuntary state action because it is less pernicious than involuntary private action.

So that's a long sketch, but believe me it's still just an outline. I think you get the gist, though.

32 comments:

And of course, none of this is to say that the state is an unalloyed good. Of course it can do wrong. That's why I'm a limited-government guy, after all. My point is simply that while there may be good reason to always be vigilant and suspicious about the state, it isn't INHERENTLY illegitimate.

"We are caught in a web of involuntary impositions on our liberty. It is the human condition."

The human condition was not to fly at one time as well. Chattel slavery for most of human history was considered merely to be part of the human condition. Strange how the "human condition" never stays still; this is really the greatest knock against natural law arguments like this. As for Foucault, this just illustrates at best he was just a vulgar and rather stupid determinist.

"So yes it is involuntary, but that does not mean it is the equivalent of slavery."

No, it is a type of unfreedom; unfreedom exists along a spectrum, and unfreedoms have been falling away over time.

"The purpose of the liberal state is to minimally impose itself on human liberty but act as a bulwark against private tyrannies that emerge in the "web of power" that is natural to the human condition."

That's the basic justification for it of course (and really the only means by which to justify the state); but since even the best states do a piss poor job of following through on both it is a fairly terrible bargain.

"When people complain about state imposition on BP and violations of liberty, what they forget is that this action helps to relieve impositions on the liberty of people suffering from the spill."

RE: "The human condition was not to fly at one time as well. Chattel slavery for most of human history was considered merely to be part of the human condition. Strange how the "human condition" never stays still; this is really the greatest knock against natural law arguments like this. As for Foucault, this just illustrates at best he was just a vulgar and rather stupid determinist."

I'm not sure where you're getting this, but I'm certainly not making a natural law argument and I'm definitely not contending that the human condition stays static. As for your point on Foucault... could you explain?

RE: "That's the basic justification for it of course (and really the only means by which to justify the state); but since even the best states do a piss poor job of following through on both it is a fairly terrible bargain."

Then why are people trying to get into the U.S. but out of stateless areas where private tyrannies run rampant. Think about what you're saying? The verdict seems to be that it is not such a terrible bargain.

RE: "You're just repeating point 4 here."

Yes, but in the context of John Dewey who I privileged with his own point.

Then mayhaps you shouldn't make statements like "It is the human condition."

"As for your point on Foucault... could you explain?"

I used to be a great fan of Foucault - and there is some kernal of stuff in his work that should be interesting to libertarians - but his philosophy is ultimately self-defeating and deterministic. Or let's put it this way - Foucault very famously claims that everything is power, and this power is creative in nature - so what is the point in resisting it? You cannot change it according to Foucault; indeed, the individual really has no role whatsover in this narrative - it is all about deindividualized bodies of people migrating like fish between "epestime" or another. Foucault went down a rabbit hole some time after "The Birth of the Clinic" that made power into something with basically a will of its own.

"Then why are people trying to get into the U.S. but out of stateless areas where private tyrannies run rampant."

Merely because the 18th century ideas regarding the state are better than the 10th century notions of the state doesn't mean that the 18h century ideas are something which should exist on the ground in perpetuity. And most people who come to the U.S. do not come from "stateless areas" - they come from places where states exist. Which gets us back to the old saw by Churchill that democracy is terrible until you compare to its alternatives, but Churchill never gave as an alternative the non-state or the non-monopolistic state.

I don't take anything Dewey wrote seriously; the guy was a serious advocate state control of vast areas of human life, and no friend of liberty.

RE: "Then mayhaps you shouldn't make statements like "It is the human condition.""

I suppose if I said "the human condition is to have two legs" you'd think I'm saying the human condition is static too, right?

As for Foucault - I'm not broadly familiar with him, this is just an insight I've found useful for quite a while now. I think the sheer density of power relationships is an important thing to remark on. I would depart from him insofar as I think that is a very good reason that we should think carefully and actively about the best way to structure those power relationships, insofar as we have the ability to structure them.

RE: "Merely because the 18th century ideas regarding the state are better than the 10th century notions of the state doesn't mean that the 18h century ideas are something which should exist on the ground in perpetuity."

Well of course not - nobody is making that case, I don't believe. The libertarian alternative doesn't provide a better solution to the problem, though - that's my point. They ignore one side of the ledger and then conclude "see - it's safe to drop the state". I don't want to stick with the 18th century state either. I think we've made innovations on it, but I don't think we have a good alternative yet. It doesn't mean we never will.

*On the "10th century notions of the state" - note that that is the slippery slope that libertarians ignore repeatedly. When you remove the liberal state, you inevitably get gang rule. In that sense, libertarianism is utopianism that in the end just regresses to 10th century notions of power.

I hope we'll transcend the 18th century liberal state and I expect we will - but not through libertarianism as it's currently conceived.

There are a number of examples where that is not the case; the "Old West" for example (which was not the lawless domain made out by Hollywood) or much of Pennsylvania during much of the Rev. War. I think advocates of the liberal state overstate the historical evidence of this claim.

RE: "I'd say that this density has lessened over time; Foucault would counter that it has only become more dense."

And this assumption on your part I would say is based on my point about libertarianism in general - that they focus on certain kinds of impositions on liberty, not impositions on liberty in general. I'm not sure what I would say on how this has changed over time.

RE: "This is where I preach the good word about seasteading."

Seasteading is just a technology - you still need an institution. Although I suppose your point might be simply that seasteading allows for experimentation with institutions. I'm a fan. On a scale that is more immediately doable, this is why I'm a fan of decentralization, localism, and federalism. The states are the laboratories of democracy.

And when we do start experimenting institutionally in more technologically exciting ways, don't leave space out of the equation as attractive as seasteading is.

I think your Point 6 on Dewey is especially important... although I'm not very familiar with Dewey in particular, this is one thing that has really drawn me to pragmatism more generally. I think Foucault sets up the same sort of situation but doesn't offer nearly as extensive a focus on the positive aspects of such things.

An article we read this past Autumn semester was Robert Brandom's "Freedom and Constraint by Norms", which I think sets up the idea quite well (although it's an older article and his thought has developed since its writing). He actually points out Kant as a basis for this thought, but argues that Kant's view of the free subject disallowed him from going as far as he could have in understanding the inter-subjective constraints that can make for freedom in a social situation. Brandom therefore sees the need for a Hegelian development of what are Kantian roots of pragmatist thought, and I think that stance is pretty broadly the case when you read other pragmatists as well.

At one time amongst archaeologists the notion that the state arose as a result of warfare was the commonly held viewpoint; but that viewpoint has been challenged by the evidence from the earliest civilizations which had no walled fortifications, no armies, etc. These first cities were held together by mutually beneficial trade and shared ideologies and religious traditions. One does not even get the sense that they were terribly hierarchal either, nor were they places that demanded tribute and loyalty - you could probably enter or exit with a great degree of freedom.

That's how I imagine the future. It certainly illustrates that one can have monumental architecture, complex trading regimes, advanced levels of agriculture and aquaculture, without the trappings that we consider essential for the state to exist - armies, well maintained borders, exclusive loyalty of the citizenry, etc.

RE: "There are a number of examples where that is not the case; the "Old West" for example (which was not the lawless domain made out by Hollywood) or much of Pennsylvania during much of the Rev. War. I think advocates of the liberal state overstate the historical evidence of this claim."

These examples are largely just localist renditions of the liberal state, though! "Liberal state" doesn't mean a centralized capital governing a broad territory. Indeed, it's when power gets more centralized that you get a less liberal state!

...I meant to add, Kant's views of freedom probably keep him from making these moves in a way analogous to our libertarian friends, who I imagine hold to what might be characterized as a more Kantian view of subjectivity and individual freedom.

RE: "without the trappings that we consider essential for the state to exist - armies, well maintained borders, exclusive loyalty of the citizenry, etc."

Once again I get the feeling you and I are talking about extremely different things when we talk about the state. Certainly these are elements of some states, but none of these are essential elements of the liberal state that I am talking about.

"And this assumption on your part I would say is based on my point about libertarianism in general - that they focus on certain kinds of impositions on liberty, not impositions on liberty in general."

I'd say you are wrong about that. Corporate bodies (e.g., the church, the state, etc.) no longer have nearly the control over people as they once did; nor does the family. In comparison to the life of a person from classical Greece or Rome or medieval Europe there are vast areas of human life that just do not fall under the sway of anyone except the individual.

A state in order to be a state has to have those characteristics; the liberal state is just a subset of types of states.

"Certainly these are elements of some states, but none of these are essential elements of the liberal state that I am talking about."

Of course they are. They are a necessary condition for all states, liberal or otherwise. Indeed, to put the thing exactly, a state is an entity which has the exclusive control of the use of legitimate force over a specific geographic region.

That's basically the idea, although of course they intended to add a few new things to the mix. It's actually an interesting situation of pedigree, though... I have some very historically-minded friends who are quite upset about pragmatist readings of Hegel that they think present a bastardized version of Hegelian thought... I'm inclined to agree, strictly speaking, although I think it's worth acknowledging that traditions change over time and that such creative re-workings of Kantian or Hegelian thought are appropriate enough if that's your thing.

It's also worth noting the extent to which pragmatism has often situated itself within the wider empiricist tradition. This comes out more in some applications to the philosophy of mind with Sellars or logical empiricism with Quine, or James himself in his radical empiricism.

Xenophon -No. An army is not essential to a liberal state (although the ability to raise one certainly helps to maintain a state!), well maintained borders are not necessary, and exclusive loyalty is definitely not necessary.

Let me put it this way - I could jettison all of these, personally. Maybe you're right and my definition of "state" is a bad one. But I personally could jettison each of these.

Am I a libertarian or am I in agreement with you? Clearly not. So there has to be something other than these three things differentiating us. None of these were ever upheld by classical liberal political theorists as being essential.

I've never heard of James Marsh, and I don't recall Brandom mentioning him (although I've only read a handful of essays and sections of two of his books). He looks like an interesting person to pursue... I'll have to add him to my reading list. My sense (and I'd stress that pragmatism is a new interest so I'm not especially well-read) is that earlier transcendentalist and Romantic thought was tied to the pragmatists, especially through personal interactions, but that it doesn't always crop up that decidedly in their theoretical systems. I'm not sure how much someone like Marsh would come up, but now I'll have to look into his work... any recommendations on where to start?

Also, Brandom strikes me as engaging less with the classical American pragmatists like James, Dewey, Peirce, etc., and more with pragmatist thought after the linguistic turn. Someone who draws more extensively from the pre-WWII American tradition might have been more likely to mention him.

To me what that comment says is that you are denying the tension that exists in the liberal state; a tension best identified in my mind by Lysander Spooner.

Evan,

Not quite sure; I've read something that stitches the two groups together, but I can't remember exactly what it was. This is something I haven't really looked at in about ten years. See if I can find it in a bibliography or some such.

James Marsh is worth exploring even for the mere curiosity value though - very interesting sort of character that gets less play than I think he deserves.

Yeah, I can't quite remember if the Marsh book weaves the transcendentalists and the pragmatists together, so sorry if I was confusing with my recommendation. It does do a good job of describing Marsh's influence on the transcendentalists though.

Daniel, you should also admit that you have a somewhat different conception of liberty in mind than libertarians do.

By liberty you seem to mean some sort of a set protected expectations. That's why, you maintain that BP's supposed misbehavior (which, by the way, has not yet been proven) is a violation of liberty of others. It is not, at least in the libertarian sense of the term "liberty".

BP's potential negligence is for the most part not even a violation of property rights, because there are currently no property rights in fisheries, beaches, etc.

That is where a libertarian approach would work, by the way. If you could establish property rights in beaches and fisheries, you could better protect the expectations you seem to want to protect.